At Simoshi we are obsessed with two things when it comes to firewood consumed at schools:
1) Cooks can only feed the institutional improved cook stoves (IICS) with small firewood pieces,
2) Firewood needs to have a water content of at least 15% for ideal combustion, therefore firewood has to be stored raised from the ground, under a shelter for at least 6 months. Firewood chopped from the wood has a 50% water content.
Chopping firewood is a very difficult job, especially when men have to use an axe because schools fail to raise money to buy a chainsaw, or even hire one. So my gratitude and admiration goes to all those men giving their best to get the firewood pieces as we need them, while always keeping a happy face.
Open
This is how schools usually store their firewood for the kitchen
Shelter
How to store firewood to bring the water content down to 15% and double the energy value
The toughest jobs of all, chopping the firewood with the axe, into small pieces.
Valentino proudly showing his muscles and still happy after that fantastic job!
The short film above produced by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) promotes the efficient use of wood as a fuel in households. Efficient heating technologies, combustion, pyrolysis, thermal insulation, wood storage as well as aspects of consumer health and behaviour of wood use are visualized and explained in an easy to understand manner, so we always sit down at schools with staff members to teach them about the benefits of cooking with dry firewood.